God of Wars, Arise
by seeXlifeXin69
Summary: With his wife dead, his child dead, and all by his hand, Kratos doesn't know what to do with himself. He is filled with a lust for battle, and would do anything to achieve that. Well, almost anything. Perhaps people can change other people...


A single butterfly can pollinate a whole field, they are such wonderful and fasinating creatures. A lovely yellow striped butterflly with black spots slowly glided down to a bizzare colored flower protruding from a vine crawling up to the balcony. It paused for a second, it's wings batted slowly, and then after taking it's drink of sweet nectar, it took off, quickly, unnaturaly fast, winding in an estranged zig-zag path. The butterfly's brilliant yellow stripes turned green instantaneously, then proceding to convulse spastically, desperatly trying to keep flight. It dropped lifeless to the stone floor in the courtyard below. The poisonous flowers were always the most beautiful.

"Mina!" I heard the shining youthful voice call, "Mina!" A beautiful young boy came bouncing around the corner, a dark peice of parchment clutched in his tight chubby fist, waving it for me to see.

"Aeos, darling, what do you have?" I placed my hand on the top of his blonde curls, bending down to meet his azure stare. He held out the peice of paper, directions scratched on it, resembling my mother's penmenship.

_Mina, _

_If at all possible, I need you to pick up some things from the market,_

_Lystia was not able to get out of bed this morning, I believe she is sick._

_Please, go down to the market, have one of the guards escort you, there_

_has been violence in the city recently, I have left a few coins on my bed,  
and please take Aeos with you, I'm sure he'd enjoy a treat._

"Thank you, Aeos," I kissed his soft forehead, "Come, we must go to the market." I stood to my full length again, taking his fragile hand in mine. In my mother's chaimber, on her bed, lay a small leather pouch that jingled when picked up. I passed it down to my child when he tugged at my dress, begging to hold it.

To be perfectly honest, he wasn't my child at all, but I treated him as such. I was but a mear fourteen years when I witnessed his birth. His mother was one of our chaimber maids who had been messing around with a tradesmen, a bastard child was not very honorable, especially from a chaimber maid. The midwife, Andrea, pulled out the small blue body of what was suposed to be her first born son. She unrapped the umbilical cord from around his neck, and massaged his chest until he began to wail, his skin turned rosey, replacing the akward aquamarine color. She passed him off to a young assistant, somewhere around my age, to dry him of the birthing fluids. Unfortunatly, we couldn't do as much for the mother, and she passed shortly after. No one wanted the orphan child, who was a very small child, a month premature I believe. Keeping him was out of the question, my Father told my Mother, there was no need for the bastard love child of a dead housekeeper. Disscution continued about how to rid of him, "Drown him? Suffocation? Poison, which ever is the swiftest." I was almost sick to my stomach, no child should ever have to be put through any of these acts. I picked up the fair doll in my arms, and I took him back to my chaimber, despite the yelling from my parents, I could give him the home he needed. "He won't live, you know, he's a puny thing!" Andrea stopped me, "Don't get too attached."

I prayed to Zues to give him strength, I prayed to Athena to watch over him, I prayed for him to see great Apollo race his chariot back and forth across the sky a countless amount of times, and I prayed to every God I knew, making sacrafices and fasting. By the second week, he had grown and become plump, a sign that he would live. Now sure that he would live, in my care, I called him Aeos, dirrived from Aeolus, the God the the Wind. I looked down at my small child, taking him up into my arms. His golden spirals covered his brilliant blue eyes, he almost needed a headband to free his eyesight. Even though I wasn't his birth mother, I believe that the Gods have blessed us with simmilar looks. His waves of hair matched my deep brown locks, and we shared the color of our eyes, a deep intense color of Posidon's kingdom. I looked down at almost running to keep up with my slow stride. It was hard to accept that he was already three years, my mother wasn't lying when she said '_they grow up fast'_.

I laughed and took him into my arms after he began to breath hard. He was a sturdy child yet incredibly small, it worried me, but I was just happy to have him alive and well. I tied the drawstring of the money pouch around his fleshy wrist, everything we needed running through my mind so we could get into the street and come back as quickly as possible. I blew off the request that my mother gave me to bring a guard. Bringing a guard into the market, dressed in fine clothes, would only draw unwanted attention.

I slipped out the door with the little one on my hip, gliding across the courtyard silently.

The market was my escape from isolation. It was a bubbling square filled with people trading and haggling. Unlike the palace, this place was harsh and disgusting at times, but this only provoked me further to indulge in this culture gathering.

Aeos held out the parchment, meat was the first thing on the list. As I walked over towards a vendor yelling out prices per pound of meat. Chicken, fish, beef, lamb, pork? Mother didn't specify what kind; I took another look at the list. As I scanned down through the different products, looking for any specification of what I was supposed to buy, a strong wind came through, catching Aeos off guard, and it slipped through his fingers. I tried to grab it, but missed. Setting Aeos down, and holding his hand tightly, we began to run after our list.

I obviously wasn't paying attention to where I was going, because I ran right into something.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, please excuse me!" I looked up at a tall man who was burly and tan.

"Watch where you're going, whore."

My mouth opened, I was about to insult him, when Aeos pulled on my hand, "Look, it went that way!"

He pulled me across the street, zigzagging after the paper. We were stopped again by a crowd of people who were still as stone with a look of horror on their faces. I looked up to see what was the matter. Is there a fire? A fight? Had someone died?

I was right in all three categories. A large fire had wrecked part of the city, and dead bodies were strewn over the roads and houses. The smell of flesh had already reached the city. I snatched Aeos off the ground and held his head to my chest so that he could not see anything. There were at least fifty bodies of men that had holes through the center of them. Their faces frozen in a state of terror, and their insides poured out. I saw a man, or at least that what I think he was, head in hands on the ground panting hard.

"Dear Athena, please bless us." I whispered before I took a single step forward, cradling my Aeos close. One after another, slowly and precisely, I held my breath until I had stepped my way over to him. I stood in front of him, he was so strong looking, and his muscles bulged far more than any human I had ever seen. He looked like his blood had been drained, his skin paper white and ghostly, except for a large red tattoo that made it's way down half of his body. Chains, that seemed like they were burned into his skin, wound around his arms, and at the end of those long chains where two bloody blades. I made the connection; the gaping holes in the men, and his swords. I raised my free hand and gently placed it on his shoulder. He jumped up, ready to attack, eyes full of the lust for blood. For a second, his eyes met mine, and the lust faded. Then something caught his eye behind me, and he raised his swords. As he threw the blades out around me, something caught me in the back of the head, and I held on to Aeos as I dropped to the ground. I don't remember anything after that.


End file.
